Residents' gardens thrive at public housing complex

Brenda Riley was hesitant at first to start her own garden at Cheatham Place public housing, but says she now enjoys working and maintaining it.(Photo: Photos by Sanford Myers / The Tennessean)Buy Photo

It's not a typical community garden — and not in a place where gardens usually grow.

But the little green buds just starting to come up are a sign of success at Cheatham Place, a public housing complex in North Nashville.

By growing their own food in raised dirt beds beside their front stoops, 33 residents of the complex are taking an ownership role in the fight against hunger, one vegetable garden at a time.

It's part of an effort to change how people think about food and hunger in Nashville, where 18 percent of households recently reported struggling to pay for the food they need.

Charlie Jones, one of the Cheatham Place gardeners, used to know that feeling.

"Food is so high and expensive now," he said. "At the flea market, man, okra is expensive."

Three years into his gardening, Jones gets his okra with a different kind of investment: time.

"Okra — it takes a minute, but it eventually comes up," he said, extending his arm above his head to show how tall the stalks can grow.

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Cheatham Place resident Charlie Jones waters the plants in his garden, which he has kept for three years.(Photo: Sanford Myers / The Tennessean)

Once he pulls the pods, Jones also knows how to cook and freeze them for later. At each step, he and the other gardeners get help from Lutheran Services in Tennessee. The agency partnered with the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency in 2010 to make Cheatham Place the city's only government housing with a garden program.

"It's a really good solution to getting nutritious food into the hands of people in need," said Janet Arning, program director with Lutheran Services. "It's proven to some that they can take over their own food security."

Some took convincing. Arning and the early growers worried their gardens might be trampled or targeted by thieves.

Riley and the others practice "square-foot gardening," packing vegetables in dense beds, typically of no more than four square feet. Riley's rows include greens, green beans and green onions. She grew squash one year, but it went wild across her yard — and her neighbor's.

"You go to sleep, wake up, and you've got more," she said. "It's amazing, when you look at it and realize what you've done."

As with many gardens, the Cheatham Place beds often produce more than enough. That has many benefits for the neighborhood, where the gardeners build bonds by sharing the extras.

"They're realizing they don't have to go to Kroger and to Second Harvest (food bank) and to that free meal they've been going to," she said.

Jones, 52, finds few reasons to go elsewhere for food, especially when he can get tomatoes at his front door. Literally. The vines grow from the raised beds straight up along his fence and handrail.

And with his food source so close, he can also keep an eye on it. He has to. Squirrels enjoy his plants almost as much as he does.

"Last year, I ran them off plenty of times," he said.

But like the rest of his gardening, he's learned a few tricks. Jones puts something out that he likes but they don't: a few sprinkles of crushed red pepper flakes.

Reach Tony Gonzalez at 615-259-8089 or on Twitter @tgonzalez.

Sponsor a gardener

Lutheran Services in Tennessee accepts volunteer help and donations. A gift of $175 provides a raised-bed garden and supplies for a family. To give or learn more, contact Janet Arning at 615-881-4579 or jarningLST@gmail.com.

Residents at Cheatham Place public housing are taking ownership over their own food security by planting individual raised vegetable gardens outside their apartments through a garden program with Lutheran Services in Tennessee.
Sanford Myers